Detentions and Betrothals
by Marie E. Brooke
Summary: Betrothals weren't exactly the best news one could receive - they were, after all, basically forced marriage - but being betrothed to Bellatrix Black, a certified madwoman...Well, that certainly put a damper on one's day. NOT FLUFF, one-shot.


**A/N: I can't believe I'm typing this on vacation. Vacation. This just shows how dedicated of a writer I am…even though I know that this will never actually make the competition d****eadline, due to extreme lack of Wi-Fi. Oh well. I hope you enjoy it anyways! :D **

**Disclaimer: No. Just...No. **

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><p><strong>~Detentions and Betrothals~<strong>

**by Marie E. Brooke**

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><p>Rodolphus Lestrange stared at the letter for a few seconds, taking time to absorb the surprising information it contained, before letting it fall to the ground. A soft breeze wafted from the tip of his wand, accompanied by a few flickers of blue light, and swept it into the fire. He watched the parchment fold into itself and blacken into ashes, the fire licking up its remains and returning to its usual fiery state.<p>

He sighed and turned toward the family owl, Partridge. Her amber eyes were defiant, her beak jutted out stubbornly. Seeing that she would not leave without it, he held his hand towards her. Lying in his open palm was a small handful of peanuts. They were eagerly devoured by the hungry owl (who certainly had no mind for his master's hand, thought Rodolphus rather ruefully, wincing as his hand was repeatedly pecked and bitten), who allowed him only a brief ruffling of her tawny feathers to express gratitude before finishing off the last of the peanuts and soaring into the afternoon sky. He watched her fly away until she became a mere speck on the horizon, and then turned away from the window.

He knew that he was going to be betrothed to somebody at some point. He was, after all, a Death Eater in training and a pureblood, and he could not be allowed to frolic about with some sort of mudblood, anti-Voldemort witch.

He just didn't expect that he was to marry _Bellatrix Black, _of all people.

All he could do was wait, come up with some sort of plan to find out more about the madwoman (he had heard the nasty rumors), and pray that she hadn't heard of the betrothal yet.

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><p>With his rag in hand and cleaning spray in the other, Rodolphus was seriously starting to consider joining a religion.<p>

No, seriously. It wasn't as if he actually partook in Muggle religious ceremonies and that sort of trash—he wasn't even part of any religion—but if this praying business worked for Muggles, then surely it should work for wizards as well.

Besides, he figured that God's powers wouldn't extend to non-religious folk like him.

Immediately after this thought passed through his mind, he smacked his forehead. This is what the madwoman had been doing to him; he had probably contracted some of her madness because there was no way that he could have even considered resorting to filthy Muggle ways. Or maybe he was really that desperate to escape the madwoman.

"Rodolphus, dearie! I've been looking for you everywhere!"

The madwoman that had just _scared the hell out of him. _

He crawled tentively out of his little corner behind a display case. "Dammit, the madwoman found me," he muttered to himself, brushing dust off his robes.

"What did you say?" she said dangerously, her hand creeping towards the handle of her wand.

"I said that your hair is beautiful," he lied (on both counts).

She simpered, smoothing down her monstrous black bundle that Rodolphus strongly suspected was where she hid the bones of her victims. (He had heard of her affinity for illegal dark magic, not to mention all the hours he and the Death Eaters had spent listening to her endless ranting that praised the Dark Lord and the dark arts.) "Why, I do make sure to take good care of it," she said, fluttering her eyelashes and attempting a seductive position against the display case. The fragile glass, which was not protected by magic for some strange reason ("No magic, eh?" scowled an annoyed Bellatrix as she gazed at Filch's retreating back. "Ha! Bet he wouldn't like it if I took off all the spells in this room to fulfill that rule!" she cackled, sending a shimmering wall of blue sparks onto the display cases), crumbled under Bellatrix's immense weight.

Rodolphus winced and held up his arms to protect his face, hearing the sound of glass shattering into millions of pieces and a loud flood of very…creative cursing, to say the least. He carefully opened one eye, preparing for the worst – and barely succeeded in controlling his laughter when he saw Bellatrix stumbling about with a shiny, gold trophy atop her head.

Bellatrix yanked the trophy off her head and scrambled over to his side. "Anyways," she continued, ignoring his muffled laughter, "what were we talking about again?"

_Marriage. _"Er—spells," he improvised.

Her eyes lit up malevolently, making Rodolphus start to regret his previous words. "Oh yes," she said eagerly. "I happen to be an expert at dark magic. I've memorized all the good ones – you know, the illegal spells. I happen to be an expert at the Cruciatus curse." She rubbed her hands together gleefully.

"Um. Okay. That's nice," said Rodolphus awkwardly.

Bellatrix ignored his tone of voice. "It is, isn't it?" she said. She abruptly turned towards him. Rodolphus recoiled at the sight of her wild hair and her flaxen skin. Her eyes were lined heavily with dark, smoky eyeliner that did little to enhance her non-existent beauty. She gestured wildly towards the ceiling. "The Dark Lord is so magnificent, isn't he?" she said dreamily. "Under his rule, the world will be cleansed of the filthy beasts that we call wizards, and the streets will run with the blood of anybody who dares to oppose him!" She let out a large cackle that ricocheted off the high ceiling of the room.

Now, one must understand that Rodolphus was not exactly part of the Dark Lord fan club, not that such a ridiculous club existed. He was only part of the Death Eaters because his mother approved of the idea of a world in which there were only purebloods. Rodolphus himself was rather neutral about this matter, but his mother was persistent about his joining the Death Eaters, and it wasn't as if it would harm him to join anyways.

He decided to go with the oh-so-creative answer that he had been using quite a lot as of the late. "Um. Okay. That's nice."

Bellatrix's eyebrows vanished into her mass of hair. "_That's nice?"_ she repeated incredulously, shooting him a deadly glare. "Matters such as these cannot be described with such crude language –"

Rodolphus squirmed under her angry gaze, slipping his hand into the pocket of his robes and curling his fingers around his wand, and opened his mouth to stutter a feeble retort. "I –"

The door burst open, revealing a disheveled figure with a cat on his shoulders. Rodolphus had never been so relieved to see Filch in his entire life. He ducked out the door and raced towards the Slytherin dungeons, leaving Bellatrix to the mercy of Filch, who was probably dragging her by the ear to Dumbledore's office to complain about the mess that she had made by breaking the display case.

Once locked safely in his dormitory, he shuffled through his trunk and produced a bottle of ink, a quill and a fresh leaf of parchment.

He began to write, his elegant scrawl slowly filling up the paper. _Dear Mum, I am writing to you with the intent to cancel the betrothal with Bellatrix Black. In my possession I have a collector's edition of "The Death Eater's Essentials: The Dark Lord's Selected Spells" that is signed by the Dark Lord himself…_

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><p><strong>AN: Finished this much faster than I thought I would. The fact that I got the idea of ending it with a letter from Panda-chan's (or her penname: A Violin Geek) one-shot is probably why. Check her out, her writing is amazing! Anyways…As always, REVIEW PLEASE! (Also, if you do not have an account, you can also review.) **

**CONTESTS/CHALLENGES:**

**[****The Marauder's Era Competition] Write about Rodolphus Lestrange; Prompts – ****shiny controlling, before, specialty, memorized.**

**[*2015* New Years Millionaire Fanfiction Resolutions & Goals Competition] Write about your least favorite character (Bellatrix Lestrange) – _earns $100_**

**[Build-A-Bear Challenge] Other Animal - Write about someone unique.**

**[Greek Mythology Mega Prompt Challenge] Medusa – Write about Bellatrix Lestrange.**


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